


Meanwhile, Deep Beneath the Battleground

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2018-01-03 01:40:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1064178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson is sad, hopeless, and miserable after the death of his best friend three years earlier. He is bored, whether he knows it or not, so when a mysterious stranger calling himself Tuesday offers John a case, he can't resist. But how far is he willing to go, and how much is he willing to risk, to get his friend back? Can he solve a murder that didn't even happen?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Texts from Tuesday

Chapter 1: Text from Tuesday

In a high-class club in the centre of London the British Government sips his tea. In a police station across the river a Detective-Inspector sits at his desk filing paperwork. In the mortuary upstairs a woman sighs as she cleans up. In a flat close the center of the city an old woman smiles sadly as she touches the bullets holes in the walls, and the yellow smiley face no one has bothered to paint over. Behind the closed doors of a psychologist’s office an army doctor tries to explain that he still believes. And below the city, the man with the keys plots and waits. 

John Watson limps slightly as he walks, as if an old injury haunts him, as if he has something to forget. He hails a cab as it starts to rain; it seems to him that it has always been raining, pouring, spitting, trickling, bucketing, and drizzling. It has been raining for three whole years. The water blurs the lights of London; he wonders what is behind them, behind the closed windows and locked doors, then stops himself. No good ever came of such curiosity he reminds himself. The cab pulls up outside of a flat on Baker street, number 221B, and John hauls himself out, he pays the cabbie then limps up to the door, unlocks it and steps inside. 

A dog half walks and half falls down the stairs, “Hello Gladstone,” John says; the dog was his psychologist’s idea: maybe by caring for an animal he could learn to take care of himself. It hasn’t worked, Mrs. Hudson mostly takes care of it, and it only reminds John of the empty flat. He sits in a chair staring at a newspaper, he doesn’t read it: none of it seems to matter. The sky darkens, and another day fades into the rainy grey blur of the last three years. 

He picks up his phone; there are three new text messages, and an email from Harry. He deletes the email without even opening it. 

Having drinks with the men from the yard tonight.  
Do you want to come?  
-Greg Lestrade

No. He doesn’t want to go, besides he’ll just be stuck in the corner talking to the one or two officers there that he still knows. And they won’t want to talk to him, his connection to Scotland Yard died a long time ago. 

How are you doing, still holding up okay?  
If you ever want a cup of tea and a chat, you know where to find me.  
-MH

Mycroft has been weirdly persistent lately; maybe he should go this once to shut him up. He texts a quick reply.

Sounds lovely, tomorrow at six?  
-JW

Mrs. Hudson interrupts him before he can get to the third text.   
“Oh, it is filthy in here, isn’t it. You expect me to do all the housekeeping, I’m not your housekeeper you know.” She rambles on, picking cushions and books and plates off of the floor. John doesn’t reply. 

“You have to take better care of this place, you haven’t tidied once since Sh-“ She stops, covering her mouth with her hand.

“I’m going to take a nap.” Says John, as if he hasn’t heard her, but the trembling of his hand as he grasps his cane say otherwise.

He sits on his bed, twiddles his thumbs, stands, walks to his desk, turns on his laptop, walks around the room while it boots up, sits down again, opens his blog, closes his blog, takes out his phone, reads the third message.

Dear John,  
You don’t know who I am, you’ve met me, but you don’t know who I am.   
My interests are the same as yours, John. We both want something.  
I want you to solve a case, one last case, just for me.  
One last case, the mysterious case of Sherlock Holmes.  
So your first clue is this: Download Image   
-Tuesday

Sherlock Holmes is dead.  
-JW

He texts back, and then take his shoes off and lies back on the bed. The phone beside him buzzes.

But we both know that’s not quite true.  
-Tuesday

This, this can’t be happening; all his ambitions vanished three years age. There is no way he is going to be dragged down this slippery slope again. He made the mistake in digging too deep into London’s crime once, and wasn’t about to do it again. 

Still, despite his better judgment, despite all common sense, he opened the image. While it loaded, he remembered something his best friend had told him once, just after they met ‘Seen a lot of injuries, violent deaths. Bit of trouble I bet.’ ‘Of course, enough for a life time’ he had answered ‘Wanna see some more?’ John realized that his answer hadn’t changed. As he opened the file, he whispered it to himself.

“Oh, god yes.”


	2. Wallpaper

Chapter 2: Wallpaper

It was a picture of a floor, not a particularly impressive floor, just a floor. The old wooden planks were faded and aged, grey and scuffed from years of use. 

John sighs, this is not the clue he was hoping for, it’s probably just some kind of cruel trick. He can’t just give up though, can he? This is his one chance to find out the truth. It has to be some kind of sign. Sherlock would’ve known what to do… That’s it! John thinks, he has to think like Sherlock Holmes. 

He goes over to the desk and holds the little smartphone under the light, looking at it more closely. In the corner of the photo there was an edge of sideboard and a bit of mildewed wallpaper, as if the camera had been angle slightly when the photo was taken. There is also a prominent shadow, maybe of the cameraman, maybe someone else, in the foreground of the picture. 

John gets out his laptop and uploads the picture, he zooms in on the scrap of wallpaper; it is a faded blue grey chipped and peeling, something else catches his eye, there appears to be a design on the background in light grey or silver, maybe a tree. 

“What would he do next?” Watson asks himself under his breath. He googles the wallpaper. 

As it turns out, the print is a collectable. The article reads: ‘The pattern was first commissioned in the early sixties, and was decommission after lack of interest in 1965, there are only a few houses in London that still have it.’ Four houses to be exact. Situated in Lauriston Gardens, they all fit the time period of the wallpaper, and were all renovated around them y the same company hoping to sell them off as flats. 

The floorboards in the photo are obviously old and worn, and as John scrutinizes them he sees they are covered in a think layer of dust, which is disturbed in only one place: near the bottom of the picture where the photographer would be standing. So the house must be abandoned, thinks Watson to himself. Three out the four building are entirely unused and have been that way for many years. 

“Think John think!” He tells himself, running his hands through his short military haircut. 

“The shadow!” He yells.

“Are you okay up there dear?” Calls Mrs. Hudson from downstairs. 

“Yes Mrs. Hudson, I’m fine.” John replies. 

Okay, the shadow, the shadow has to be the final clue to the house, but he has absolutely no idea how to use that to find the building. I’ll just check all of them he thinks.

He stands, and half-runs down the stairs and out the door.

“I’m going out Mrs. Hudson, I’ll be back for tea.” He yells over his shoulder.

“Wait dear, you forgot your…” the door slams, “…cane.”

**********

As he steps out of the taxi he hailed, John texts Lestrade.

Lauriston Gardens, come now.  
It’s about Sherlock  
-JW

Lestrade arrives about ten minutes later; he finds John snooping around the doorstep of one of the third house. 

“This is it, this is the one that was opened!” says John excitedly.

“What, what are you talking about?” asks Lestrade, John shows the detective inspector the texts and the picture. 

“So you think that suddenly someone just shows up out of the blue with a clue about Sherlock?”

John sits down on the step. “Y-yes, I did.” He puts his head in his hands.

“This door has been locked.” Says Lestrade. “For a very long time. I’d like to know how this picture was taken.”

“It might not even be this door,” wails John, almost hysterical. 

Lestrade doesn’t answer; he simply kicks the door down. 

Inside it is dark, illuminated dove grey light that filters in from the dust-covered windows. The floors are bare, only the scuffed wooden planks remain. 

“This is definitely it.” Murmurs the Detective Inspector. John raises his head and turns. “See this dust, its kicked up here and on the stairs, so our mystery photographer went this way.” Lestrade starts to climb. Watson follows, draying his gun. 

The dust trails lead around many, many flights of stairs to the top of the house, where there is an empty room. The wallpaper is the same as the one in the picture, so the room is definitely a match. The two men scour the area, looking on the floor, walls and roof, but they don’t find anything. 

“I guess it was just a trick” Says Lestrade, disheartened. John, however, is looking at the photo. He lines it up so the corners match the walls, and so his back is to the one window, like the cameraman. He casts the exact same shadow. 

“The shadow,” he breathes, and turns around to look out of the window.


	3. Huángsè Yóuqī

Chapter 3: Huángsè Yóuqī

The window is grey and dusty, fluffy particles painted on the glass like so many snowflakes, the product of many years of neglect. The view of the city of London is spectacular, and Lestrade goes to wipe away the dirt.

“Wait,” cries John, “I think I see something.” Moving sideways, he looks at the window from all angles. “Yes. If you look here,” Lestrade moves to stand beside John, “you can see there is a circle drawn on the glass.”

“Indeed there is,” grunts Lestrade, slightly miffed at not having discovered it himself. 

John moves forward to peer through the glass again. “The British Museum!” He exclaims.

“The British Museum what?”

“You can see it from here, directly in the center of the circle.”

“That doesn’t really look much like the Museum.”

“It is, but it’s the National Antiques department. They have a smaller building off to the side. I went there once, it was really rather nice. And it is, I suppose, where we should look next.”

“Tomorrow.” Says Lestrade, as the sun dips below the horizon, “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting to old for this.”

“Come on Lestrade, I am enjoying this, the thrill of the chase. Didn’t know how much I missed it.”

“Well the museum will probably be closed by now.” 

“I’m sure you could get us in.” John walks off, pausing only slightly at the top of the stairs.

“This is not really my division,” Lestrade mutters to himself as he turns to follow John, “but I suppose Sherlock was, well, I’m not really sure what he was, but maybe he was a friend. God, now I’m talking to myself. I should get out more.” He jogs a bit to catch up. 

They hail a taxi, but don’t speak as they drive through the steadily darkening city. Shop lights begin to come on, and London slowly switches it’s day life for it’s night life. The National Antiques department is closed, but a young man opens the door and lets them in when Lestrade flashes his badge. 

They poke around for a while, and then John’s phone buzzes, loud in the quiet Lestrade looks up startled, and then returns to eying a display of vintage jugs. It is a call from Mrs. Hudson, asking where John is. He returns it, “I won’t be home for dinner after all,” he says, then hangs up. He is just about to put his phone back in his pocket when he notices something else. There is also a text message.

It must have arrived at the same time as the phone call. The exact same time., because John never heard it sound. The message reads:

Good Job  
-Tuesday

“Lestrade, come look at this. They texted again.”

“What have they got to say this time?”

“Good job. Nothing else, just good job, as if we’ve done something.”

“Seems awfully fishy to me.” The phone buzzes again.

Download Image 

John clicks the link, and it opens to a picture of a marble statue, Greek probably, of a woman. Half-dressed, her loose toga barely covers her chest, and she holds her right hand above and behind her head. Her left arm is missing, and where her hand once was there is a basket of flowers that she must have held.

“I know this statue.” Says Watson, and he rushes off down the corridor.

“Why am I always the last one to know about these things,” Lestrade asks himself. He finds John five rooms away looking at an alcove, which is occupied by a statue, the statue from the photo. “How did you….?” Lestrade begins to ask.

“I’ve been here before, and Sherlock taught me some memory tricks that I practice now and then.” 

“Well, this is it,” says Lestrade, looking back at the picture on the phone that is still grasped in John’s hand. 

John walks around the statue, checking it for clues, but finds none. He kneels around the foot of the podium upon which the statue stands to investigate the floor while Lestrade cranes his head back, admiring the room. His head freezes.

“John, I think I found something.”

There are symbols painted on the roof in luminescent yellow spray paint. The first looks like a plus sign and a man with straight arms, a little head and curved legs. 十六. The second is three parallel lines of different lengths and the plus sign again. 三十. There are two more of these combinations, 五 and 六十, and 八 and 十七.

“We need to get back to Baker street, and I need a copy of the London A to Z.”

************

Back at 221B, Lestrade and Watson sit in the comfortable armchairs. Mrs. Hudson comes in with two cups of steaming tea, and she and Lestrade make small talk. Watson peers at a picture of the symbols, which he snapped before leaving the museum. He rises and begins riffling through the flat’s many bookcases. He pulls out a popular guide book and flicks through its pages, making notes on a scrap of paper. 

“Rats…..floor….fire? No. Eat…Indian…..train? No. It must not be this book.” 

“What do you mean not this book dear?” Mrs. Hudson asks. 

“This is a code, I worked on a case with Sherlock that had a code like this in it. One Chinese numeral means the page number, the other is the word, but it doesn’t make sense. Even when I reverse the order.” 

“Try this one,” says Mrs. Hudson, holding up a book that Sherlock always seemed to be reading, but never seemed to finish. It was Transition by Iain Banks.

John starts to write again, his lips moving as he shapes the words. “This is it,” he says, “The next clue, the next step towards Sherlock.” And his face brightens.


	4. Interlude

Interlude

There are said to be two types of monsters: those who prefer attics and those who prefer cellars. The spider was certainly the latter. 

He had many names, and many identities, Spider was just one of them. The others could be anything. One day a businessman, the next a pauper, Spider changed with the tides. That was the main reason he was still alive. 

Spider’s current residence would only last as long as the tide, for when it changed, the Thames would flood in, filling his concrete sanctuary with briny water. It’s only a few hours away, but that’s all the Spider needs. 

Most spider’s webs are only occupied for a couple of hours, after that the web is abandoned and the spider moves on. 

A smart phone rings ‘…and as we gaze on Waterloo sunset, we are in paradise.’ Emanating from its tinny speakers. A new ringtone for a new persona, a new persona for a new hunt. Spider reaches out his arm, and a man places the cell phone on his open palm.

“Thanks Sebby.” 

The man disappears back into the shadows.

Spider rolls his head around, cracking his neck. The man in the shadows winces but does not do anything, Spider can be peculiar, but it’s best to leave him be, contradicting him can be dangerous, even deadly. 

On the last ring, the Spider answers the phone. He listens for a long while then nods.

“Yes, good job. Now finish is quickly, we don’t want the trail to grow cold.” 

A web is made out of gossamer silk, very thin yet also impossible strong. Spider’s web is much the same, a network of phone numbers and contacts, internet chat rooms and a great wall of anonymity. Virtual blue bonds linking every single part of a massive man machine, bigger than London, bigger than England, maybe as big as the world. 

The ultimate network, one that cannot be seen or heard or traced or spied on. Every spider’s web, is also a trap. And the perfect web, by extension is the perfect trap. 

“Come Sebby, it’s time to move.” The Spider stands and saunters off into the gloom, followed by his henchman. 

One of the most important qualities of a spider’s web is that it is completely invisible. Until, of course, it’s too late.


End file.
